Out Where The Dreams All Hide
by CloudyDream
Summary: Summary: "Your mother," Lord Reed told Jon, firmly. "Was a whore." Jon Snow has silvery hair, bright purple eyes, and no family. Or, hopefully something you've never read before. Pre-canon.
1. Chapter 1

**out where the dreams all hide**

When Lord Robb told Jon that Father was ashamed of him, Jon tightened his fists and screamed it wasn't true, but deep down he knew the other boy was right.

Young Lord Robb was Jon's half-brother, he knew, and Lord Stark had laughed and said that he was no lord yet, and Jon should only call him Robb. He had looked a little sad as he spoke, and Jon had promised him he would; but he and Robb had only met four or five times, and he much preferred not to call him anything at all.

His half-brother had another brother of his own, Jon knew, and two sisters, and a mother who was not the same as Jon's. They all lived in Winterfell, further North than Greywater Watch, and Lord Howland once told Jon he used to live there too, when he was very small, but he couldn't remember. Robb, who was a little older, had said he did, but that Jon looked different back then.

"You had different hair," he had informed him. "It was brown."

Jon had made a face at him. _Does he believe me stupid?_ His hair was a pale blonde, had always been; he was sure of that. "You're lying."

"'Course I'm not," Robb had said. He didn't look a thing like Lord Stark, Jon had decided then, no more than Jon himself did. Why does he get to live at Winterfell when I do not? He knew that Robb's lady mother was Father's wife, but couldn't he have married Jon's mother instead?

"This is why you had to leave, you know." _That_ had piqued Jon's attention, and he had listened closely to what his half-brother had to say. "You started to look like your mother, so you had to leave. Father told me so."

Jon hadn't believed him, and they had quarreled; and the day had ended with he asking Lord Stark if he could please not bring Robb along the next time they met. "He is a good boy, Jon," Father said, gently. "Same as you. It would do well for you to be friends."

That was stupid. Jon was not allowed to have friends, as he wasn't allowed to leave Greywater Watch except for the times he and Howland rode north to Moat Cailin to meet Lord Stark there, but he had been bringing Robb along for two years now, and Jon didn't want to share.

_He has him all year long_. Jon only saw Father twice a year, and when he asked to go back to Winterfell with him he'd been told it couldn't be done. _Robb was right_, he thought. _He's ashamed_.

But he knew better than ask Lord Stark about it; so he waited until they had to leave and he was on the road with Lord Howland again.

"Is Lord Stark really ashamed of me because I look like my mother?" Jon blurted, then immediately regretted it. Howland's eyes darted towards him, sharp and intense.

"Did Robb tell you that?" he asked, and Jon nodded.

Howland did the same. "I suppose so. One would need only a look at you to guess…" he paused slightly and closed his eyes for a moment. "…to guess who your mother was. Lord Stark is not ashamed of you, Jon, but his lady wife would be."

Howland had no lady wife; she had died birthing Jojen, a few months before he went to live in Greywater Watch. Would she have been ashamed, too? "Robb said I used to look different," Jon continued, curious; and Lord Reed nodded once again.

"You did. He meant to raise you himself at Winterfell when you were smaller." Grow up in Winterfell, like Robb Stark. He wondered how that would have been. There were knights in Winterfell, with swords and maces; but no Meera.

He realized something else.

"Is my mother dead? You said she _was_."

Howland flinched at that, then blinked. "I suppose she could be. She is in Lys, Jon, she is as good as."

_Lys_. That was in Essos, and Jon tried to imagine when Lord Stark could have gone there. "What's her name?" he asked. "Was I born in Lys, too? Do you think Lord Stark would tell me –"

"– Jon," Howland interrupted him. "You need to promise me this now. You must never, _ever_ ask Lord Stark about your mother. He wouldn't want to be remembered."

"Oh." He wanted to ask why, but there was no need.

"Your mother," Lord Reed told Jon, firmly. "Was a whore." There was kindness in Howland's voice, and his eyes were sad, but Jon understood. He _knew_ what whores where, even thought he'd never saw one, and he knew that they did not mingle with lords. Or, at least, not for long.

"Jon?" Howland asked him softly, after a while. "Are you well?"

"Of course I am," he said. It did not mean a thing. His life hadn't changed at all, he told himself, except that now he knew why he only saw Lord Stark twice a year. He would still go back to Greywater Watch with Lord Howland and go on with his life, follow his lessons and learn swordplay and play with Meera.

And, one day, he would still be a knight.

* * *

**Note**: this comes from a quote I found online that went something like, '_what if Jon was born with dark hair, and started to look like Rhaegar when he grew up?_' I know usually is the other way around, blond-haired kids' hair getting darker but still, it would be an interesting scenario.


	2. Chapter 2

**Note**: so, this is now apparently an ongoing ficlet series. Still listed as complete because it can stand by itself.

* * *

Jon was ten years old when he kissed Meera Reed for the first time.

They had to hide away so to not be seen, and he had to bow his head because she was so much shorter then he was; but he figured it was worth it, to feel so grown up in a single moment.

Afterwards they climbed one of the large trees by the pool they'd been standing by, and sat down on the branches; and Jon asked Meera if she wanted to do it again.

She seemed to think about it.

"No," she said, after a while. "Not right now,"

Jon shrugged, the moment forgotten. "Alright. Wait," he paused. "Are young going to tell your father? Because then he'll be angry at me."

"He won't," Meera promised. "He likes you."

That was not answer. "Meera!"

She laughed at his nervousness. "Don't worry," she said. "I won't tell."

"Thank you," Jon told her; even though some part of him couldn't help but wonder what would happen if she did. Would Howland be angry at him, and send him away? And where to? _Or perhaps he really likes me_, he thought, _and will have me to marry Meera once it's time?_ Some lords did that, Jon had learnt from his books, marry their daughter to their fosterlings; but Howland was not really a lord like the ones outside the Neck were, and Jon was no true fosterling. _I'm an embarrassment_.

It wouldn't be bad, he knew it, to marry Meera and live in Greywater Watch forever. It would be good; the best thing he could hope for. _I want to be a knight_, Jon had told Lord Stark when he had been five, and his father hadn't answered. _There aren't knights in the Neck unless they're dead_, Jon had learnt, later, _and I'm not allowed to go anywhere else_. He could fight with a spear but not with a tourney lance, and soon enough he would be tall enough that he wouldn't have a decent swordplay partner either.

"Meera," he began, and she turned to look down at him.

"What is it?"

They were sitting next to each other. Meera, lighter as she was, was perched on a branch that was slightly higher up than Jon's, and was letting her leg swing close to his ear, again and again.

"Have you ever thought about what you'd like to do?" Jon asked. "When you're old enough?"

It was a while before she answered, and Jon could feel her eyes trailed on him. He did not raise his head to meet her look though.

"I'd like to see the world," Meera said, eventually. "Like Father did. The Isle of Faces and the Riverlands and the North, Dorne and Harrenhall and –"

Jon cut her off, curious. "When did Lord Reed go to Dorne?" he asked.

Meera made a funny noise and Jon knew that, had he been looking at her, he would have seen her shrug. "I don't know. In the war, maybe."

_Maybe_. They said that it never snowed in Dorne, not even in winter, and it never rained even, which Jon couldn't imagine. _Where do they get their water from?_

"And what about you, Jon?" Meera asked. "What would you like to do?"

"I don't know," he said. What did he want? _Go north and see Winterfell. Go to Lys looking for my mother, and ask her why she left me here._ Jon paused, then remembered Lord Stark, and being five years old and enthusiastic.

"I want to be a knight."

He could almost feel the smile growing on Meera's face. "You should," she said. "Then you can fight in tourneys and go have adventures."

When she put it like that, it sounded like the best life Jon could ever have. "But I'd need someone to knight me first," he pointed out. "You need a knight to make one."

Meera moved and Jon heard the leaves shift as she climbed down, graciously. She came sit next to him, brown furrowed in concentration. "I bet Lord Stark knows lots of knights," she said. "Maybe he could bring you to meet one."

"I don't think so," Jon told her._ He didn't answer me when I asked_. "There aren't many knights in the North, even your father says so."

She smiled then, as if she'd made an important discover, and her whole face lightened. "I know someone you could ask," she said. "Father had a friend who was a knight once. They met at Harrenhall."

Jon had heard plenty about Harrenhall from Howland, but nothing about knights. Meera continued, "he told me the story once, when I was sick. The knight of the laughing tree – I bet Father could ask him."

"I don't think –" Jon began, but Meera didn't let him talk, excited as she was.

It wasn't long before Jon was excited, too.

"We can ask him as soon as we're back home," she told him. "Just trust me, it'll work."

And Jon did.


	3. Chapter 3

The next time Jon met his father was a few months shy of his eleventh birthday, and Robb did not come.

_That's good_, Jon decided, seeing the two riders in the distance. Lord Stark and… a guard, maybe, of some sort, but too big to be his half-brother. _We can do things together_, he thought, _only the two of us_.

He did things together with Howland all the time, but he was almost never alone with him, though Jon didn't mind sharing with Meera, and Jojen too, when he joined in. Only last month they'd read a book about the Young Dragon, and Jon had loved it. Daeron Targaryen had been only fifteen when he had conquered Dorne, the book said, and that was only four years older than Jon himself. _Well_, he amended, _four and a half_. His half-brother once had said that they had a maester in Winterfell to learn things from, instead, and Jon wondered how that would be.

_Boring_, no doubt, he told himself.

The other man was called Jory, Lord Eddard told Jon, but he never came close enough for Jon to see his face. His father went to them instead, to greet them , and it wasn't long after that Howland rode away, to the guard of Winterfell that Jon could not see. _Father's ashamed of you_, Robb had said; and the words had never ringed truer than today.

"Jon," his father sounded concerned. "Is everything well?"

The words brought him back to reality._ You have only today_, he chided himself, _and you're wasting it._ "I'm sorry Father," he said. He could not think of the man as anything but _Lord Stark_, as imposing of a figure as he was; but Jon knew he didn't want to be called that. "I was distracted."

"Jon," Lord Eddard began again, gentler. "Are you sure? You can tell me, you know."

_And what are you going to do?_ Go away like he always did, Jon was sure; and, besides, he didn't want to ask his father if there was any truth to Robb's words.

He was too scared he would say yes.

"What's going to happen to me?" Jon blurted out instead. "When I'm grown up, when I'm a man. Will I still have to live at Greywater Watch?" _Never to be seen by anyone. Always hidden_.

Lord Eddard frowned at first, but then he seemed to understand. "You're right, Jon," he said. "Perhaps you should think about it –" and here Jon wanted to say that he had, so, so many times; but he didn't.

"And so will I, and we'll talk about it in a year or so. You could join the Watch, like my brother, or…" he stopped there, looking at Jon, his grey eyes so different from Jon's own. _Like Robb's_, he thought.

"We'll talk about it."

_A year_, Jon found himself thinking. A year, that was two of Lord Eddard's visits. In one year he would be twelve. _Only three years younger than the Young Dragon when he conquered Dorne, and he was already a knight by then_.

"A year," Jon repeated, and he smiled.

* * *

They were nearing Greywater Watch on their way back a couple days later when Jon saw the men. _Other_ men, not crannogmen, as tall as Jon's father or his guard, as tall as Jon knew he would become one day. He was already taller than most crannogmen he knew, taller than Lord Howland, had been for a few months now; but other people in the Neck weren't supposed to b.

They were riding, like Jon was, less than fifty feet away from him, close enough that he could clearly see their faces. He almost wondered if they were knights for a moment, like the dead Freys and Darrys Meera had told him about, the ones that lost their way among the swamps and never came out. _Like the Knight of the Laughing Tree_. Howland had refused to talk about him but he had to be out there, surely.

But only a look was enough to understand that the men were not knights. It was three of them, with brown beards that were nothing like Lord Eddard's, muddy clothes and no armor in sight. They had horses, but old ones, and no shields with paintings Jon could see.

And then they saw him.

One of the men did first, the one with the blue cloak, bright enough that Jon could still see the color beneath the mud spots. Their eyes met across the ponds and the brushes, and the man's widened in surprise. Too much surprise, Jon decided. _Why is he staring like that?_ He surely was more used to other people than Jon was. _I should be the one surprised_.

"Vik, Darril," the man said, barely loud enough for Jon's to make out. He didn't hear the rest, but saw the other men taking notice of him as the first one had, staring like he did.

He was starting to get nervous. If this is what meeting new people was like… perhaps Jon didn't want to anymore.

"Howland," he called, to the crannogman who was now well ahead of him; and his voice was as tense as he felt. Howland turned, his brown eyes darting from Jon to the men; and he looked worried.

Howland Reed was never worried.

"We'd better hurry home, Jon," he said then. "Come, now."

He nudged his own horse, galloping fast enough to take Jon by surprise. "Jon!" he called again, and he followed. One should never gallop in the swamps, Lord Reed himself had taught Jon, just like he'd taught him about the Young Dragons and the First men and how to hold a quill for the first time. And now he was doing it; and Jon was too, but he couldn't understand what the problem was.

Later, much later, they stopped; and the sky had already started to darken by then.

They were almost to Greywater Watch, Jon knew; when usually the journey should take one more day. "Who were those men?" he asked. "Did you know them?" Perhaps they were _Frey_ after all.

But Howland only shook his head, frowning. "They saw you," it was all he said; and it wasn't quite a question but Jon spoke up anyway.

"Yes," he offered. "And looked _so_…" And at him, not at Howland, even though Jon was a normal boy and the other a crannogman.

"They saw you," Lord Howland repeated. "How could we be so stupid…"

He and Jon? Or he and Lord Eddard? He wasn't quite sure he wanted to know, not if it made Howland Reed angry. But curiosity triumphed in the end. "Who _are_ they?" he asked again, and Howland's face darkened.

"Trouble."

* * *

**A/N**: I foresee this going slightly Dunk'n'Egg-ish sooner or later. I'm missing a Dunk though, so it might be a while. Any suggestions? I'm a bit wary of OCs so I'd rather use a canon character, but I don't have many ideas.

Also, if you enjoyed this, please consider checking out _And the sky won't snow_, as well. It's a somewhat loose sequel to this, set during AGOT and featuring a Tully-looking Arya - and, eventually, grown up Jon, too.

Thanks for reading!


	4. Chapter 4

**A/N: This ran** too long; but it always happens to me so I got used to it. Also, there's some pre-teen angst I'm not completely happy about, but it's justified, Jon is definitely not an unbiased POV, and he really can't help being emo so it's his fault, not mine. Maybe I'm pushing it with the angst, but I have a perfectly good excuse, and I'm stickin' to it.

* * *

They barely made it to Greywater Watch before Howland left again, with two of his men this time. He didn't answer any of Jon's questions, about the men, why they'd looked so surprised, and why was Howland himself so worried.

"I'll be back soon enough," he told both Jon and Meera, and that was it.

He didn't say anything to Jojen, of course, because Jojen always seemed to know everything, even before it happened; he had since he'd been ill as a child. Jon remembered that, Howland's serious look and Meera crying and the smell of sickness in the air, and then one day Jojen had healed, and hadn't really been a child since.

Jojen had looked worried before they left to go meet Lord Stark, Jon remembered now. He told Meera as much, and the two of them went looking for him.

"Where's Father going?" Meera asked, interested. She was always complaining about how unfair it was that _Jon_ got to leave and she did not, even after he'd assured her that Moat Cailin was really just a ruin almost as boring as Greywater Watch, Robb Stark just a stupid Lord's son and he liked Meera better anyway. She was still curious about the world outside though; and Jon couldn't really blame her.

After all, so was he.

It turned out that even Jojen didn't know where his father had gone. "Somewhere he can send a raven to Lord Stark," he said, and Jon thought it was stupid. Hadn't they just came from meeting him? Meera said as much.

"What does he have to say to Lord Stark that he hadn't three days ago?"

"I think it's me," Jon said, and he hated that his voice sounded as weak and scared as that of a little girl. After all, he realized, what else could it be?

"It can't be _you_, Jon," she said, rolling her eyes; but Jojen was nodding slowly.

"Did you meet the tower men?" he asked, interested. "I dreamed you would."

"I think," Jon said. Only lords and knights lived in towers and those had been no knights, but Jojen could have dreamed of Frey men, or just men from Moat Cailin. His green dreams could be strange at times. "And they just _stared_ at me, and Lord Reed looked all worried." More worried than Jon had seen him since Jojen had been four years old, and dying.

"Why was he worried, Jojen?"

But Jojen did not answer.

Howland returned two days later, with his friend Galbart Fenn in tow. House Fenn did not have a maester, but House Marsh did, and the Fenns shared their ravens at times. _Jojen was right_, Jon thought; and it was only confirmed when Howland told everybody that Eddard Stark would come to visit Greywater Watch in a fortnight or so, to Meera's great excitement.

"This is almost as good as coming with you and Father," she told Jon; and he was glad that she, at least, was happy. He couldn't help but being puzzled, and worried. Lord Stark had never come to visit Greywater Watch since he could remember, no even in the spring when Jon had been too sick to travel.

Jon's father arrived in less than two weeks, earlier than Howland had said he would. Lord Fenn had sent ravens to every castle where Lord Stark might stop on his way north, Jon learned, and he must have rode fast enough to almost kill his horse to make it in such short time. Jon hadn't been there when Lord Stark had arrived, but he heard the gossip same as everyone else.

His father had arrived witha grim face, everyone said, and disappeared with Howland before talking to anybody else. Still, there was to be a feast that night, with Lord Fell and Lord Cray and even Myriah Quagg, and Jon wasn't allowed to see his father before then.

"I'm sorry Jon," One-Eye Qarl told him. "They looked very serious."

Old Qarl was the closest thing Greywater Watch had to a real Master-at-arm, a seasoned warrior, and taller than most crannogmen. He'd been the one to show Jon how to use a sword instead of the three-prong-spear Lord Reed preferred, and was possibly Jon's favorite person after Meera, even more so than Howland at times.

"Tell you what," Qarl continued, "I can't interrupt Howland or your father, but you can go to the other man that came with him."

"The guardsman?" Jon asked, curious, thinking of the Winterfell guardsman.. Jarl? He tried to remember the man's name. Jory, Father had said. _Jory_. "Can I meet him? Truly?"

The other man nodded. "I don't see why not. You are going to met him tonight at the feast, so..."

"Thank you," Jon said, eager. For a moment he considered telling Meera, or even Jojen, to have them come with him; but decided not to in the end. They would only pester the man with questions, or at least Meera would, and Jon wanted to be able to ask questions by himself first. After all, Winterfell was _his_ home, or had been once, and he deserved to be the first one to hear about it.

Qarl led him to the room where the guardsman was, and Jon found himself studying him intently. He had dark hair, like his father and Robb had, and a brown beard. Where all men in the North dark-haired? Maybe that was why Jon had been sent away. Qarl knocked on the door, briefly, and the man turned towards the door.

"Jory Cassel," Qarl introduced him. "This is Jon, Lord Stark's son."

The man - Cassel's eyes found Jon then; and he winced.

"This.." he was staring, like those riders had, before Howland got so worried. "_This_ is Lord Stark's son?"

"_I_ am Jon," he found himself saying, perhaps too rudely; but this man was nothing like he'd expected. And then, because the look was making him nervous. "My mother was from Lys," he added, warily and hating himself for it. He had nothing to be ashamed about, whoever his mother had been. His father _was_ Lord of Winterfell, after all.

Even Qarl turned to look at him now. "Who told you that, Jon?"

Jon did not answer. His father had never told him anything about his mother, refused to talk about it even, and he didn't want to tell on Howland in front of this man. He looked at Cassel instead. "So, do you live in Winterfell?" he asked. "How is it?"

Cassel blinked at that, and it was a while before he answered. "Very big," he said, in the end, slowly; but at least he wasn't staring anymore.

They continued talking like that, the guardsman still cagey and Jon trying not to think much about what his behavior meant. Qarl left eventually, and the day had turned to dusk when they head footsteps, and yet another knock at the door. It was Howland, and Jon's father.

"Jory," Lord Stark said; and the Cassel stood up in greeting. "Jon." His eyes darted between the two of them, face impassive, Howland looking resigned next to him.

"I see you have met Jon," his father told Cassel; and there was something there he wasn't saying. Something they all knew, except Jon.

"I have, my lord," the guardsman said, his words charged with the same emphasis Lord Stark's had; and Jon knew there was something they were not telling him. There _had_ to be; and Jon had never felt more like a child than he did now.

"Unfortunately so have some of Lord Frey's woodcutters," Howland cut in, smiling a wry smile. "Jon," he added, "why don't you go fetch Meera and Jojen? Your father wants to meet them, he told me so."

_And why didn't he tell_ me _so?_ Jon found himself thinking. If Lord Stark was _his_ father, why did he always talk to Howland more than he did to him? A fit of rebellion made way through his thoughts. _And he gave me away_, Jon told himself; and suddenly he was angry.

He recognized a dismissal when he saw one, but Jon Snow did not go looking for Meera. He left the room, getting far enough not to make Howland suspicious, only to come back once they'd closed the door. He hunched by the keyhole, and _listened_.

"...Can't have Frey's smallfolk spreading rumors about what they saw," his father was saying; and he sounded worried. "It would bring every sort of attention here."

"With all respect," Jon heard Cassel say. "It might be too late for that."

"I know," Lord Stark said. Jon thought that perhaps he sounded sad, but he had never really imagined his father could be sad before. It simply wasn't an emotion he had ever assiciated with Eddard Stark, the strong warrior of Howland's stories. And what had the men _seen_, anyway? Only Howland and Jon, and there was nothing extraordinary about any of them.

But his father was speaking again.

"..keep him hidden, Howland," he said, and was Lord Stark talking about _him_? "Don't let him go anywhere, anywhere ouside Greywater Watch. Whatever those men are saying, it will all die down in a year or two."

_A year or two_, and Jon's heart sank. He was supposed to be a squire in a year or two, and why couldn't he leave now? He'd done nothing bad. Would he even meet his father now? And then he remembered Robb's words, _Father's ashamed of you, you know_.

"The Free Cities -" he heard Howland say; but he didn't care anymore.

"- are too dangerous. Who would go with him? And we would need a ship, and sailors _talk_."

Jon left then, tears prickling at the corner of his eyes. He didn't want to stay hidden, didn't want to never leave Greywater Watch, didn't want his father to be ashamed of him. But his father _was_, and Robb and his brother and sisters were living at Winterfell while Jon was kept hidden from sight as if he were something to be forgotten. _Like the sick men during the Spring Sickness_, Jon found himself thinking. Hidden away like Lady Lothston from the stories, or her malformed mad brother, like Princess Daena locked in her tower.

That was Meera's favorite story, Jon remembered all of a sudden, because Daena had been as handy with a bow as Meera was with her spear and net and, no matter how many times her brother locked her up, she kept running away.

_Maybe I can run away, too_.


End file.
